Smart Tech Could Help Consumers To Save On Their Energy Bills

By Cynthia Taylor

Energy prices are set to increase this next month, could Smart Tech be able to help cut energy bills?

Smart Phones have become an integral part of everyone’s daily lives, and now Smart Phones could help consumers to manage their energy usage in their homes. By connecting your gas, electricity and oil to your phone, you could soon be managing your energy bills.

Up till now the idea of controlling your home heating, lights and other aspects of your home has been thought of as something out of Science Fiction, or only for the very rich. It seem that now there is a revolution happeningin homes today and soon many people will be using their phones for temperature control in their homes.

Honeywell a UK company is now leading the way with an announcement this past week, that they will be introducing Evohome, this is a wirelessly connected system for heating the home and it promises a saving of as much as 40% on a home’s heating bill.

Figures supplied by DECC, as much as 82% of a typical energy bill is made up of heating the home and heating hot water. Which means that there is a very big potential for saving on energy bills.

Traditional heating systems have a choice of ON or OFF options, however these new smart systems will give a householder much more control over the various parts of their homes.

How the Evohome works

The Evohome system will be connected to our radiators and the boiler, it is then controlled from a an app on your smart phone or a central consol. It will be able to regulate the homes temperature in up to 12 different locations in the home, this will allow you to control each location individually.

Given this level of control you could be watching TV in one room and with a click of a button you are able to control the heating in your bedroom for instance 30 minutes before going to bed, which means your bedroom will be warm when you retire, and from your bedroom once in bed you will be able to switch off the heating in the rest of the home. Before getting out of bed you could turn on the heating so that the home is warm when you get up.

The Evohome is expected to be launched in the UK in January, it will need an initial investment for the Evohome Connected Pack, this will cost £249, plus the internet gateway. But for each zone or location you wish to add, the radiator zone kit will cost £77.

The Savings

With the current increases on the cards that will bring the price of a duel fuel bill up to 1,465 annually, then a potential saving of £600 will make the Evohome or any other system like it that will follow, to be a very attractive investment.

There are other systems on the market today, and the most well known alternative being Nest. This is a connected thermostat that was designed by a former Apple executive, Tony Fadell. MrFadell was a major influence in the iPad development.

The Honeywell Evohome

Just like all the Apple products the Nest is a well-designed piece of equipment, and this promises a 20% reduction on heating and cooling the home. The Nest is currently only available in the USA, there are future plans to introduce it to the UK, it is not clear when this will happen, because of reports that suggest that the company is going through some building regulatory problems.

It is expected that with energy prices continuing to increase, systems such as Nest and Evohome will become more popular, and it is likely that alternative systems will come onto the market, when people begin to look for ways and means to invest in for long-term savings.